The Original Causes of the Cyprus Conflict

Conflict Studies Web Page (Cyprus)

Kıvanç Sağır - 2007

In order to identify the underlying causes of the still-continuing ethno-nationalistic conflict on the island, which reached its zenith with the1974 intervention, we need to have a close look at the roots of the political ideologies that led to the sharp separation of the two communities. It is especially crucial to mention the sources and components of the nationalist ideas each side possesses.

Following the conquest of Constantinople, then the capital of the Byzantine Empire, by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the entire Greek mainland was brought under Ottoman rule. The Greeks were recognized as millet or a nation, which meant that they could freely maintain their ethnic, cultural, and religious identity, under the Greek Orthodox Church. The sultan granted the authority to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople over matters which closely affected the daily lives of ordinary people. This gave them the opportunity to develop their own nationhood in terms of language, social institutions and values, customs and traditions, and their Orthodox Christian religion. On the other hand, the Turks did not go through such a process until the collapse of the Ottoman, as they lacked the numbers, sophistication, and the organizing ability of the Greeks. Their tardiness to do so did nothing but add to the rising national pride and self-confidence of their opponents, which came into being as they gained back their old territories following the establishment of the independent Greece in 1827. This self-confidence led to the birth of Megalo (Great) Idea, the belief in the necessity of revival of a greater Greek state to cover all the Greek speaking, Christian Orthodox of the old Byzantine. Naturally, this idea included union with their redeemed brothers in Cyprus, which was called enosis. It was not until Archbishop Makarios and Colonel George Grivas began to collaborate at the beginning of 1950s to unite the island with the Greek mainland that the Turkish Cypriots realized the extent of the danger, resulted by their negligence to counter the Greeks. In the end, Cyprus was not a nation to which anybody belonged. Had there been an institution among the Turkish Cypriot community corresponding, for instance, to the Greek Orthodox Church, the two sides would have deterred each other despite the numerical imbalance in the population. Consequently, the two Greek leaders met in 1951 and discussed the possibility of an armed struggle in the form of guerilla war against the Turkish Cypriots, during which they were aided by the Greek government in terms of arms, funds, propaganda work and diplomatic activity. It would be the struggle of the whole Greek Nation. Like the Greeks, the Turks later realized that they did draw a distinction between their being but an integral part of the Turkish nation, possessing a peculiar national identity and cultural heritage; and their being inhabitants and citizens of Cyprus. For them, Cyprus contained two ethnic groups, each belonging to a different nation. Why should they regard themselves as a Cypriot minority? But it would not be implausible to claim that they were indeed late to ask this question.

As Greek nationalism began to flower on the island in the 1960s, with Makarios’ determination to make Cyprus Greek by unilaterally abrogating the 1960 Accords, and at the very time that Greek Cypriot self-confidence was growing with economic prosperity, the Turkish Cypriots were for the most part confined to 30 or so ghettos throughout the island. Living in relative poverty, with no participation in the Cyprus government after December 1963, marginalized and almost forgotten by the Greeks, the Turkish community was denied many of its people’s basic human rights.

Religious difference

Religion was one of the key factors that led to the conflict between the two parties. In effect, the Greek side’s being Orthodox Christian, from the Turkish point of view, did not constitute a trouble for the Turkish Cypriots. But on the other hand, as the Greek nationalism adopted the very language of Orthodoxy, the Turks’ being Muslim was not very much appreciated by the Greeks in the island. The Greeks could not live together with the Muslim Turks so closely. One student of the Cyprus conflict can better understand this, as, for example, the leader of the Greeks during the period that led to the tragic events of 1974 was Makarios, who was Etnarch as well as president. He could, with no sense of impropriety, treat them also as his flock, sliding imperceptibility from religious to political declamation. The primary aims of Greek education, the instilling of religious belief and an unswerving patriotism, were hardly distinguishable.

A largely mythical mixture of notions of ethnic and cultural superiority, together with a view of history that stressed the inevitability of the ‘salvation’ of former Greek lands, and the need for perpetual resistance to the traditional enemy, the Turks were significant germs of the 1974 events. The Turks, on the other hand, did not act like saints during the period concerned. As an impediment to achieve a stable and pluralistic society Turkish attitudes were not much better than Greek ones. Their instinct to encounter the violence of the Greek Cypriots with violence and harsh propagandas absolutely accelerated the process of conflict before the events of 1974 together with the breakdown of any mediation attempts from the Turkish and Greek mainland, as well as from outside.

Independence or compliance?

The formal independence of Cyprus declared in 1960 was not actually a wanted independence. According to Makarios, independence was merely as a stepping-stone to the eventual achievement of enosis; the Turkish Cypriot leaders, knowing Makarios’ secreted agenda, would have preferred the British to stay, or, if it could not be returned to Turkey, that the island be divided and shared between Greece and Turkey. But instead of doing any of these things the guarantors gave Cyprus its independence. When we came to the end of the 1960s, this situation changed as the Greek side wanted to act independently from the Greece. This was due to the fact that Makarios, although he never opposed to the ideal of enosis in principle, thought that it was not practicable to speak of it since the time was not yet ripe for it; whereas, the Greek government, so to speak junta, willing enosis to be effected at once. Interesting is that there was a rising trend in the living standards of the Greek Cypriots, whereas, Greece was a backward country compared to them in economical terms. Moreover, democracy had given way to tyranny under the harsh regime of the Greek Colonels. This very change had led the Greek Cypriot middle-classes to be less fired by their once central nationalist ideal of enosis. This very conflict between the Greeks and the Greeks Cypriots led, simultaneously, to the massacres of the Turks on the island, after the interference of the Greek junta to the affairs of the island.

From a Greek Cypriot point of view, a triple tragedy occurred in 1974. First, the majority of the Greek Cypriots at least felt they were betrayed by Greece when the latter’s coup in Cyprus overthrew Makarios. This gave Turkey the excuse to invade Cyprus; hence the second and, for them, by far the greatest tragedy. And from the 1974 intervention afterwards the Cyprus problem for the Greeks was: how to get Turkey out of Cyprus, and how to reincorporate the ‘rebellious’ Turkish Cypriot ‘minority’ into what would quickly become a Greek state once more.

Resources:

http://www.turkishgreek.org/kibris.htm (In Turkish)

Anastasiou, Harry. “Communication Across Conflict Lines: The Case of Ethnically Divided Cyprus.” Journal of Peace Research. 39.5 (2002): 581-596.

Fisher, Ronald J. “Cyprus: The Failure of Mediation and the Escalation of an Identity-Based Conflict to an Adversarial Impasse.” Journal of Peace Research. 38.3 (2001): 307-326.

Stavrinides, Zenon. The Cyprus Conflict: National Identity and Statehood. Nicosia: CYREP, 1999.